Do dyslexia laws help students with visual impairments receive needed reading supports? A mixed-methods approach

Abstract

Teachers of students with visual impairments (TSVIs) have long expressed frustrations about the difficulty of getting a dyslexia diagnosis for students with visual impairments, but there is limited data to validate their concerns. Moreover, although most U.S. states have passed dyslexia laws that require universal screening and/or intervention for students with dyslexia, the laws may not be applied equally across all populations of students. A mixed-methods approach can validate TSVIs’ perspectives by revealing whether dyslexia legislation is associated with TSVIs’ perceptions of how their students’ needs are being met. To this end, we conducted a qualitative analysis of TSVI survey data to investigate concerns of underidentification/undersupport of reading difficulties among students with visual impairments. We then analyzed whether TSVIs’ concerns were statistically associated with characteristics of their state’s dyslexia laws. When questioned about their experiences and challenges teaching reading to students with visual impairments, 26.32% of TSVIs spontaneously mentioned the theme of underidentification/undersupport, suggesting dyslexia may go unidentified or untreated in many students with visual impairments. Passage of a law in the past seven years and several individual screening and intervention requirements were associated with lower odds of a TSVI expressing the underidentification/undersupport theme, but a law’s requirement of Response-to-Intervention (RTI)/Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS) was associated with higher odds of a TSVI expressing the theme. We suggest that, though many aspects of state dyslexia laws appear to benefit students with visual impairments, RTI/MTSS requirements in conjunction with U.S. federal education law may serve as a barrier to reading interventions for many students with visual impairments.